> He's contrarian and likes to take shocking positions. I think he's usually
a
> very good judge, and he's the leading legal theorist in America. It's hard
> for me to see how anyone could defend Bush v. Gore, which I regard as
worse,
> legally speaking, than Dred Scott v. Sanford, but if anyone can make it
> sedem less than disgraceful, it would be Posner. He is definitely worth
> reading. he is cultivated, literate, interesting, a fine stylist with a
> lively mind, and always provocative. I don't think he's dishonest, but he
> _is_ a Republican. --jks
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i read the NYT review of dershowitz's and posner's forthcoming books about bush v. gore and thought that posner's defense of the decision, as reported by the reviewer, to be remarkable. posner seems to find no legal justification for the decision but concludes nevertheless that the decision was correct because it was good for the country. i haven't read the book (yet), and am well aware of the dangers of relying on a book review for an accurate summary of a (possibly) complex 250+ page argument. still i thought it worth sharing.
[from Posner v. Dershowitz July 15, 2001, Late Edition - Final By Ethan Bronner]
"Richard A. Posner, a federal judge on the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, a senior lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School and the author of an extraordinary array of books on law and society, has written a powerful defense of the ruling in ''Breaking the Deadlock,'' to be published in September and available this month as an e-book at Barnesandnoble.com and Amazon.com. Posner concedes that more Floridians probably meant to vote for Al Gore than for George W. Bush. He also concedes that the equal protection basis for the Supreme Court ruling was faulty (although he contends a better one was available). Yet he says the court ruled appropriately and honorably. It acted in the tradition of constitutional pragmatism, averting a looming national crisis that would have resulted from the dispute ending up in Congress, where partisan forces would most likely have run wild. On balance, Posner says, Bush v. Gore was therefore ''a rather good'' decision."